"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
What a promise! I have always loved the promise of goodness and mercy and living always in God's home. This time when I read, I payed a bit more attention and noticed the word 'follow'. In my previous readings of the verse I just took it as the general promise, "God gives you a home that has goodness and mercy." But by paying attention to the word follow I took away a different meaning.
The previous verses talk about where we're being led. For example: " He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness..." In order to get to this promised of our God given home we have been obedient to the directions and receptive of the comfort that God has freely given. We are acting and thinking children of God. In the process of expressing God in this way goodness and mercy follows US. What the world sees is the effect of our knowing that we are God's image. The world see and experiences goodness and mercy because we dwell in the house of the Lord.
With this view of the Psalm our action has good consequences. Being God's witnesses is not a passive action. Once I thought in this way, I began to notice the goodness and mercy following me. After a particularly inspiring hour singing to the dolphins and having them respond with a companionship that I am sure was the result of my focus on the unity of God's creation, a young woman came up to me on the pier and told me how beautiful I am. When I deferred she insisted that I was very beautiful. I am sure that she was responding to the spiritual glow of inspiration. Another day the workers at the gym where I help with Special Olympic's power lifting told me how awesome they thought I was and sent me a singing telegram. I thought I had done nothing special, just expressing Love. Again I think they saw 'goodness and mercy' following me. In Costco a worker giving samples gave me bag because he had seen my kindness. I wasn't sure what he was talking about. It must have been that goodness and mercy following me as I work at being 'led in the paths of righteousness'.
David from the bible knew that this is God's promise to us all. We are led and cared for and as we are receptive to this action of God, goodness and mercy follow us. David certainly gave us a good example and Jesus Christ perfected that example. Better get the move and be led.
